by Greg Curtis
“Maybe we should get started with our own people.”
He was right, she knew. They currently had fifty members of their fledgling Guild ready to absorb new spells. It seemed unfair to make them wait. The barrels of magic metal fragments were all set out. The wagons were waiting too, ready to take them back to the Guild after the ceremony. The priests of the Benevolent One were waiting as well, just in case someone needed help. And the sooner they did this, the sooner they could all get back to their duties. In particular they needed to forge ahead with the construction of their new building as the Guild was growing again. Faster than before. Currently there were four hundred souls squeezed into two converted barns. Very soon there wouldn't be enough space.
“Yes,” Tyrollan nodded. “The others if they're coming can catch up.”
But just as he was about to give the order there was a flash of light, then a pop, and a portal appeared in the field across from the Abbey's main garden. Their fellow gifted were arriving after all.
They didn't walk through the portal as she’d expected though. Instead they arrived in a horseless floating wagon! She watched in disbelief as the wagon appeared. Where were the horses? The wheels? It wasn't even a wagon. Just the tray of one with a lot of seats attached to it. Marnie quickly closed her mouth, so that she couldn’t be accused of gaping.
“That's new!” Tyrollan commented under his breath.
Marnie didn't answer him, completely absorbed in the wonder of the floating carriage. There were so many things that left her feeling breathless. The elegant craftsmanship that had gone into designing the floating carriage. Clearly the artisans had spent a lot of time shaping the ornate metal filigree that completely encompassed the carriage and formed the sides of the seats. The fact that it was built of copper and bronze instead of wood and steel. The way it floated so smoothly just a few feet above the ground without so much as a wobble. And the vast array of levers and wheels by which the driver controlled it.
Hendrick had mentioned wagons like these as she recalled. But she hadn't paid him any notice at the time. It had seemed like such a small matter after he had been talking about ancient cities beyond their imaginings. And she didn't remember seeing any of these carriages in the images of the past that he'd shown them. There people had simply flown, whether by means of wings, or just magic that allowed them to float up into the air.
Then a second carriage floated through the portal, and her thoughts returned to what mattered. It seemed that Hendrick's call had been heard and that their people were coming home. At least for a while.
“Any thoughts as to how many are coming?” She turned to Tyrollan as a third floating carriage came through.
Tyrollan just shrugged helplessly at her. It had been a foolish question.
Marnie did a quick count as the carriages floated towards them. Each one had four rows of seats with three of their people sitting on each, and a driver. So that was twelve gifted on each one. By the time the fifth one floated through the portal she already knew that there were more of them coming for the ceremony than there were Guild members waiting. And they kept on coming.
By the time the thirteenth one had floated through, she began to wonder about an entirely different matter. Did they have enough fragments? Because there were now a hundred and fifty people who had returned to Styrion to accept spells, plus their own fifty. If each of them absorbed three spells, that was six hundred fragments. And the flow of gifted on their wagons wasn't stopping.
Still, they had a lot. The fragments now filled at least seven barrels for even the least common of the magic metals. Some of them like Illuminium now filled a dozen barrels. She also knew that the various temples and abbeys of the Benevolent One were acting as collection points for the Burbage Abbey. The gods alone knew how many more barrels they were storing. Or for that matter how many more were in the smaller temples, abbeys and monasteries where the private ceremonies were being conducted.
Marnie put the question aside though, as the first of the floating wagons reached her and Tyrollan, and she realised that not everyone on it was from Styrion. The driver of course was Mythagan. But seated elegantly in the front seat just behind him was a woman she immediately recognised. And one she hadn't expected or wanted to see again. Darnial Marn.
“Greetings Darnial Marn.” She nodded politely to the woman, but inside she wondered: Was the woman here to rob them again? Or bring them more worthless stones?
“And greetings to you Miss Holdwright, Master Dan.” She managed a polite smile in return as she stood up and then waited for the driver to do the same before he rushed over to the side of the carriage and folded down a set of stairs for her. “It seems we have chosen a lovely day for this.”
“Yes indeed.” Tyrollan managed a polite answer. “And it's good to see so many of our people returning.”
So many was right Marnie thought. Already a score of the floating wagons were heading for them, and more were coming through the portal. It was good to see them all willing to take up the fight. Or perhaps it was just to protect themselves in case Sana was right? After all they too would be in danger from the beast's servants.
“They felt the desire to return. To absorb a few more spells so that if the need should ever arise, they could help protect their new home. Though of course there is no need. It is almost certain that Sana Mountforth is wrong. Confused after her time with the beast. But the gesture is appreciated.”
Marnie cringed a little when she heard the woman say that. Because she instantly understood the layers of deception in her words. Clearly she'd spent too much time in the company of Lady Peri. So much so that she understood what could not be said openly. First, it seemed that their people had not come home purely of their own desire as she'd hoped. They might not have been forced as King Oster had tried to do. But they had been pressured. There was a lack of joy in their people's faces, and she knew why.
Second, the woman didn't believe Sana was wrong either. She was saying what she had to say out of pride. But she was still worried even if she couldn't admit it. This was very much a fall-back position in case, as Sana claimed, their amulets didn't work. They had to have some magic left to call on to fight with. Any magic. Because if Hendrick was right, they didn't have anything else. But Darnial Marn couldn't admit that.
“I see.” Tyrollan was as diplomatic as he could be in his reply. “You have a plan for how to proceed?”
“Carriage by carriage. Each person will approach, absorb their three spells, and then re-board their carriage so that we may bring them back home to rest.”
Marnie looked at Tyrollan, her eyebrow raised in question. He answered her with a small shrug and a nod. They were agreed on that at least.
“Then please proceed.” He nodded to Darnial Marn.
She in turn nodded to the driver of the carriage she'd just got out of, and he turned to face the other passengers and said something to them in his own tongue.
It was their cue and the gifted dismounted as a group and wandered over to the barrels before grabbing the tongs and picking up three stones and placing them in their hands or on the ground so they could stand on them. There was no waiting with them. No ceremony. They just did it, and when the fragments of metal had dissolved into their skin, walked back to their carriage and retook their seats. In a matter of only a couple of minutes all of them had finished and the first carriage was floating away, heading back for the portal.
The same was true for the carriages that followed. There was no waiting. Little greeting of old friends, though a couple of them she recognised. It was as though they'd just come to do this and nothing else.
A couple did surprise her. One woman – Marnie didn't know her name though she remembered her face – accepted her three stones but didn't return to her carriage. Instead she wandered over to the others of the Guild and stood with them until she collapsed and had to be taken away by them to a waiting horse drawn wagon. It seemed their people were free to leave and she had made her choice
. Maybe in time Marnie thought, they would be regaled by her with tales of what life was like in the world of the Mythagan.
Another, a man she didn't recognise at all, wandered over to the Guild members and embraced one of them warmly before returning to the barrels and accepting his fragments.
And then the pattern was broken as one man she did know well, Theron who had been with her since Styrion Might, came and greeted her.
“Marnie.” He smiled and took her hand, his own arm covered all the way to his bare shoulder with lines of fiery copper that were Infernium. “It's good to see you again.”
“And you.” Marnie was pleased to see him again. But she was also surprised. “Haven't you absorbed your twenty spells?”
“A few more won't hurt. Especially if Hendrick is right and the creatures are going to be coming for us soon.”
Marnie nodded in agreement. Her thoughts had turned in the same direction and she now had half a dozen more spells. Tens of thousands of ghost dragons? She wanted to be ready. Tyrollan had done the same. They were throwing caution to the wind as they prepared.
“I have a message for Hendrick from his strange friend Valendacious Di Molena. He's not here?” Theron looked around.
“No. Running with unicorns he says.”
“Ah.” Theron looked as if he understood what that meant. “Then tell him this please. The Mythagan and the peoples of the other worlds have two sorts of crystals just as he said. They have the ones they wear around their necks. The clear ones. And the darker black glass rock like ones. I don't know how it matters, but the black ones are the ones that power devices. There's one in each of these floating carriages. One in every building. We aren't permitted to touch any of them. The wards they provided to our cities are contained within the black stones.”
“The other thing he should know is that the Mythagan's technology is also as he said, simple. They have no cannon. No muskets. No steam engines. And their metallurgy is poor. Their steel rusts. Some of their metal even crumbles in your hands.”
“So if they lose their magic they really will have nothing,” Marnie mused. “I'll see that Hendrick is told.”
“Thank you.” His message given, Theron nodded and went to stand with the others waiting for their spells, leaving Marnie standing there, thinking.
What did it all mean? She didn't know but she thought Hendrick might. He seemed to be good at finding meaning in meaningless things. Sadly, he was also good at turning what did make sense into senselessness. Why couldn't he just be a simple, practical man?! It would make her life so much easier.
Marnie turned back to watch, as people from after carriage went through the procedure. None of them said anything and Marnie spent most of her time simply counting the carriages. But she gave up after she'd reached fifty, knowing there was little point. That was six hundred gifted, and eighteen hundred fragments of the magic metal. As many spells as the original volunteers had managed to absorb in the months the Guild had been based in the Hold. And they weren't finished!
But then even as she was making sense of the numbers, her attention was drawn away from the practicalities of the procedure as she spotted a woman she hadn't expected to see again. A young woman with flaming red hair and missing a hand and a foot.
“Sana!” Marnie burst out in surprise.
Sana heard her and turned to face Marnie. But she said nothing. Just bowed – a full bow not a simple nod of the head – before turning back to the waiting barrels. Was that a gesture of respect, Marnie wondered? Or an apology for what she'd done? Or could it even be some sort of mockery? She just didn't know.
“She is mostly recovered and she wanted to help,” Darnial Marn answered Marnie's unspoken questions. “We felt it was her right given what she's been through, and we would not stop her. Though she is still a little deluded. She says that when the time comes, she already has the one spell that will save us.”
“But is it safe to give her any more power?” Marnie could see for herself that the former wife of the King was looking far healthier than she had been. In fact she looked like a typical young woman her age should – aside from her stumps. And the politeness she had offered Marnie had stunned her. Still, she didn't trust Sana. She never would. And the fact that she was delusional wasn't a good thing in her view.
“We think so.”
And that Marnie thought, had to be enough. Sana was not a part of their Guild after all. Nor did she live in Styrion. She was more or less in exile in one of the Mythagan's worlds. Unlike the others, she couldn't return. Not when there was a price on her head. Which meant that Sana was their problem. If she was going to betray them, it would be up to them to deal with her.
Marnie therefore didn't object as she watched Sana step up to the barrel filled with Illuminium fragments, lift up the side of her cotton vest with her stump, and then use her other hand which was gloved, to press three fragments against her side. She did wonder about it though. Hendrick had told her that Sana was marked on her side. She could well have been called a witch for keeping her markings hidden. So why was she keeping her new markings hidden as well?
Marnie had been only too pleased to be able to place her new markings on her arm. To finally be able to put the term “witch” behind her and just become one of the afflicted. It was safer if nothing else. But maybe that didn't matter if Sana was destined to spend the rest of her life in the Vordan Empire. Maybe it was merely that her vanity outweighed her fear, rather than the other possibility – that she wanted to hide her markings for other, more sinister purposes.
Whatever the truth Marnie was very pleased to watch Sana get back in her carriage and watch it head away, back to the portal. The Mythagan could keep her!
In the end somewhere north of a hundred carriages filled with their people arrived. And maybe fifteen hundred of their people went through the procedure. They had absorbed roughly six or seven hundred fragments of each type of metal. But the front barrels when she checked, were only half empty. Clearly they had enough spells. Even if this was to become a weekly event.
But even as she was feeling grateful for that, she watched as yet more carriages arrived through the portal. These carriages though didn't have any of their people in them. Instead they were filled with the Mythagan and many other of the races they had seen through Hendrick's spell.
“Darnial Marn?”
“Some of our people also felt that they had a duty to stand with our friends. No matter how unnecessary it is for the protection of our worlds, they wanted to show how much they appreciate our friends' sacrifice by sharing it with them. It is a matter of honour.”
Disbelieving, Marnie turned and shared a look with Tyrollan, shocked at the fact that the Mythagan were actually doing this, and at Darnial Marn's words. Just how powerfully did pride rule Darniel Marn’s life that she couldn't even admit the possibility that their world view might be wrong? Even when her own people were so desperate that they were accepting the spells themselves, thinking it might be the only protection they had.
Neither of them said anything though. If the Mythagan wanted to do this, it wasn't their place to stop them. And if Sana was right, they should be supporting them. So they simply stood there and watched as they approached. And then when the first of the floating carriages was with them, they watched as the passengers dismounted and went through exactly the same procedure as the others.
Marnie though wasn't interested in what they did. She was more interested in who they were. What peoples. Not many of them were little people like the Mythagan. There were giants and dwarves, though the dwarves were not so short as she remembered from Hendrick's spell and the giants not so tall. In fact she identified the dwarves from the surprising breadth of their shoulders rather than their height.
As for the giants, they took her breath away. All her life she'd heard the stories of the bards, and paid them no mind. Yet here she was looking at people who stood over twelve feet tall. They might not be as large as the ones that Hendrick had shown them w
ith his spell of the past, but when she could see them standing barely ten or twenty yards from her with her own eyes, they truly seemed like giants.
And the winged people – faeries was the only name she could come up with for them – they were a wonder to behold! Especially when their wings flapped as they jumped down from the carriages. Glorious white, feathered wings that stretched out like arms to catch the wind. It was hard to take her eyes off such marvels. To keep herself from rushing over to them and touching their wings.
There were many other peoples too.
She saw some who were impossibly pale of skin, hair and eyes, and guessed that they must be the sylph of legend. From what she remembered they were supposed to have the magic of bewitching. They could make people follow them with a word or a song. There were also a number who most closely resembled children. The pixies maybe? They were supposed to be mischievous, impish people, forever playing japes on others. But none of them looked particularly impish to her just then. They looked sombre.
But it seemed that the legends and songs of the bards only went so far, because she saw others that she couldn't identify at all. Some with horns on their heads. Some with fur. Some with tails.